Comparative study between using QuantiFERON, Acid Fast Bacilliand chest X-ray in diagnosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection in AL-Mansoura Hospital – Libya

Tuberculosis (TB) is an important causal agent of morbidity and death rate worldwide.It is necessary to couple diagnosis and handling of active disease with novel approaches to trim down this huge reservoir of infection. A profusion of articles has been published on the accuracy and uses of interferon-gamma releasing assays. Here we compared a whole-blood interferon-gamma release assay (QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube test, hereafter "QFT-in tube test") with Acid Fast Bacilli (AFB) and chest X-ray test to determine which test more accurately identified latent Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. 65 patients, including in this study who attends to AL-Mansoura Hospital, they diagnosed as having TB or treated as having TB with sputum positive for tuberculosis, guided by: clinical, X-ray examinations and smear negative/positive for TB. X-ray examination was found positive in 32 instances (58%) of total instances. There were fewer positive AFB results than positive QFT-in tube test results with 20 and 22% respectively. On the other handQuantiferon testdepends on a different immunological pathway. Taking into consideration that LTBI may bear devastating consequences for TB patients.